I did a football thread then my internet connection died. GOod thing to. Anyway, my observations are as follows.

Carlo Ancelotti looks like a good bloke. Good use of English, better use of humour.

John Terry still hasn't signed for Man City? And he still hasn't committed his future to Chelsea. Carlo looked extremely concerned in yesterday's press conference. City have got Chelsea on the run. No doubt about it.

Celtic are in talks with that rubbish bloke who was at West Brom at the end of last season.

Hull look to bolster their strikeforce with 3 goal a season man Bobby Zamora. I imagine £9million will probably get him.

Ronaldo's taxi makes a wrong turning and ends up at St James' Park as 80,000 welcome him to Madrid.

You know, if I was on holiday, I probably wouldn't have much interest in coming back to England simply to quash unfounded rumours that I'd heartily dismissed just a few months previously.

It also occured to me yesterday that no-one has mentioned Terry's agent, and we all know how important they are to controversial summer transfer dealings. A deal couldn't possibly go ahead unless an agent mouthed off a bit first.

there have been a bout six different stories on where he currently is over the last few days, God knows which is true. He isn't expected back for training until next Monday though, and that has been the case since May.

'So he didn't turn up in that friendly on Saturday because he fancied a few more days in the sun, eh?'- Seems an entirely reasonable idea to me.

Conjecture aside, there is and never has been any solid evidence to suggest that Terry is interested, which is why I find the continued speculation amusing. Most of the press seems to have moved on now.

Milan have confirmed that they've bid for Fabiano and Huntelaar and there don't seem to be any other clubs seriously interested in Adebayor.

I get why a lot of Arsenal fans want him gone, his attitude was shocking at times last year, but I'd like to hold onto him for another season at least. He was pretty unlucky with injuries and if we can get him fit and focused then he's a very good player and brings something none of our current squad can.

Also it's another 'senior' player gone who'll be replaced with someone less experienced who needs time to settle.

If he stays and scores 20+ goals then hopefully it'll help us win something and we can sell him for £5m more next season if he still wants out.

If he comes out and starts to show some dedication and effort, then I'll be happy for him to stay. But if he continues his hand on hips nonchalance like he showed in practically every big game last season, then he can do one right now.

Eboue gets stick, and rightly so for some of his performances last season, but he never hid.

As I said he needs to be fit and focused to justify a place in the side, if we can get him back to the Ade of 2007/2008 season, when he chased every ball that crossed halfway and was an absolute nighmare for defenders then great.

If he carries on doing his 'Henry minus the talent, achievements etc' act then he can fuck off, but I think it's worth giving him one more season.

Though I'm really hoping Rosicky will be back to play on the left with Arshavin through the middle and Robin on the right. Assuming Arsene sticks to the 4-2-3-1 he seemingly stumbled across last year that is.

He's the last player before Arshavin came along that I was really excited about us signing.

He reckons he was fit enough to play by the end of last season though and Wenger decided not to risk him, perhaps after the niggles Eduardo picked up he recognised that a full pre-season was probably sensible before he played again.

I never knew Magilton had such in depth knowledge of South American football.

Delaney goes to Ipswich for £1million. Stunning business for us, he had a shocking season last year. At the press conference at Ipswich he said "I want to get promoted, and soon. I'm in my prime you know, I'm 26, 27, 28 and I want to play at the highest level"

Erm, do you not know how old you are Damian?

Camp has gone to Forest for £100k, £200k less than we paid. Not great business but he's a whiny little bastard. I never wanted him to play for us again when he played against Forest, made two howlers that cost us a well deserved win, then came out afterwards and said "I want to move to Forest". It amuses me that on QPR messageboards, people are so eager to slate the board they claim Camp is a better keeper than Cerny! Do they have eyes?

Anyway at the moment (subject to future signings obviously) I'm gonna say Reading and West Brom for automatic then the play-off places are anyones call from Cardiff, Sheff Utd, Bristol City, Ipswich, QPR, Middlesbrough, Preston and one or two others but I'm gonna say probably the first four.

Then, as I say, City to join Reading and WBA. Though that's my heart rather than my head saying that.

I think it was more your certainty that riled me more than anything else. I mean the thing with the Championship is it seems to never end up how people predict it so I just find it silly for anyone to say such and such a team WILL go up.

I was thinking about this the other week and there's only maybe 5 teams (Watford, Plymouth, Barnsley, Scunthorpe and Blackpool) who I'd completely rule out of being promoted.

I'd be delighted with mid table next season for us. Fryatt and Howard did look good in League One but the year before were utterly useless in the Championship. Hopefully some confidence will go a long way with them.

Nigel Pearson is a manager who seems to know how to play the transfer market well (Hobbs from L'pool is a good move) and has decent funding from Uncle Milan so we should be fine. Successive promotions would do more harm than good though.

Roy Keane had a fantastic first season at Sunderland but otherwise hasn't really otherwise proved himself as a manager and there seems to be this belief Ipswich will suddenly become world-beaters under him which I'm not sure on.

True they've got a bit of a money behind them so that's gonna help but I wouldn't be at all surprised if next season was a bit of a let down for them. Aside from being a bigger name I'm not even sure Keane is an improvement on Jim Magilton.

Ipswich are one of 9 or 10 teams that have a good chance of promotion but there are still at least 9 or 10 teams with a good chance of promotion and most of them are gonna be disappointed. I'm yet to see any real reason to expect Ispwich to finish ahead of them.

Didier Zokora joining Sevilla for around £7m. He'll be a massive success in La Liga without a doubt - his athleticism is second to none, he just didn't have the positional sense to cope with the english game (although at times i thought he was brilliant). A thoroughly likeable chap as well. Had we not bought Palacios, who is one of the best at that job, i'd like to think he would have become a success at WHL. His shooting was laughably bad though - made Steffen Freund look like Pele.

Pavlyuchenko showed signs that he's a very good striker - especially when playing alongside Defoe before Defoe's foot njury. He'd already played half a season in Russia prior to joining us and so can be excused for not being consistent in his form IMO. I'd like Harry to give him a season having had a full pre-season with him, and then see what happens.

Keane has not been very good for us since his return, and a few Spurs fans were a little aggrieved that he came straight back as captain, when we have guys who probably deserve it more - Woodgate for one. It's a shame he left and/or it didn't work out at liverpool as it's tarnished his reputation at WHL somewhat. He could have been spurs legend. Fingers crossed harry will find a good role for him next year, although methinx that could be tricky.

I haven't seen any sign of it yet though, there don't seem to be that many willing bidders for any of them. I don't want another season last year though, where we leave everything to the last minute like a year 11 kid doing his coursework and end up selling ourselves short.

We still need to sign defenders and midfielders more urgently than strikers, and we have done for as long as I can remember.

If Zokora goes we'll need another CM, and a proper left footed LM. If Bale's fit we'll sell him, and if he's not he'll be injured so we could do with another LB. I think Chimbonda will be off, if not now then in January.

If we signed one more top quality CB (gutted Dunne's turned us down ;) ), we could challenge in all competitions without having to worry about juggling King around.

With Obertan unable to secure a place in the Bordeaux team last season, his imminent transfer to Old Trafford is something of a surprise. The French Under-21 international was loaned out to fellow Ligue 1 side Lorient for the second half of last season where he featured 15 times scoring just the one goal.

i miss football, and endless speculation about who we want, who's gonna turn us down and how we're ruining football just aren't enough for me. I want goals and drama and the opportunity to complain about how shit we are

my interest would be piqued if we pulled something out of the bag. Bid outrageously for someone nobody had considered, pulled off a ridiculous coup. Everything's just been played out for so long, and it's all meaningless until six weeks from now. Drawn out transfer sagas are sapping my will to live, just fucking come or don't come. If you want to come then great, if not we'll look elsewhere. Carl, pull your fucking finger out mate. Sammy, i don't care if you're on holiday, just give us a yay or nay.

Christ, how did i survive when the best we could hope for was DaMarcus Beasley on loan?

Why does that Daily Echo article have a readers' poll on which they can speculate on a business transaction that, without specific details they almost certainly won't have, they would have no idea of the answer to?